1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a key of a portable terminal. More particularly, the present invention relates to a two-way key of a portable terminal used for controlling the output sound volume, shifting menu items, or the like.
2. Description of the Related Art
In general, the term “portable terminal” refers to a device used to provide wireless communication between users. The term may also refer to a device used to provide wireless communication between a user and a service provider using a mobile communication station or the like, which provides the user with various types of contents including a voice call service, short text message transmission, mobile banking, watching television, online games, video-on-demand, and so forth.
Portable terminals are classified into bar-type terminals, flip-type terminals, and folder-type terminals according to their appearance. The bar-type terminals have a communication circuit, and input/output means, such as a transmitter unit and a receiver unit, all of which are mounted on a single housing. The flip-type terminals have a flip cover assembled on a bar-type terminal and the folder-type terminals are opened/closed by pivoting a pair of housings with which an input device and an output device are provided, respectively. In addition, sliding-type terminals have recently appeared. The sliding-type terminals and the folder-type terminals are very popular and many efforts have been made to satisfy diverse tastes of users while improving the portability and the convenience of using these types of terminals.
Recently, mobile communication services, including the providing of games and moving picture file transmissions to the portable terminals through online services, mobile banking, video-on-demand, and digital multimedia broadcasting, or the like, are being increasingly diversified. The diversification of the mobile communication services is being caused by an environment in which use of the portable terminals is very common. That is, as use of portable terminals increases and user's needs become diverse, services for providing various contents through the portable terminals are being similarly diversified and commercialized.
With the continuous efforts on making terminals having a compact size, watch-type portable terminals have appeared Efforts for commercializing the watch-type portable terminals have also been continuous. The watch-type portable terminals include a microphone and a speakerphone for inputting/outputting audio information, a display device and a keypad for inputting/outputting text information, or the like. However, function keys that are used for searching information and for shifting and selecting menu items need to be positioned on the watch-type portable terminal so that a considerable problem occurs in making the terminal to be compact enough to wear it on a wrist.
Also, the input/output device such as a keypad needs to be operated by a user's hand so that there is a limitation in making the watch-type portable terminals in a compact size. That is, if a size of a key is excessively small, a problem occurs that another key is additionally operated upon operating a key desired by a user. In addition, a two-way key used for shifting the menu items or the like should be provided with a switch member, a key button, or the like, respectively, so that a sufficient space must be secured, thereby causing a difficulty in making the terminal in a compact size.